Rigani returned after three days.

She stamped her way up to the hut, puffing and snorting. “Ye need to go, you two.”

“Go? We haven't even investigated here yet,” the necromancer protested. She laid out a small bread loaf and some more stew at the table, and Rigani moved eagerly to it, not even pausing to remove her cloak. Sou Yuet courteously helped her out of it as she shovelled food into her mouth.

“Oh, that. Yes... Um... The herd of pucai... Hm... They disappeared around a year ago...” Rigani's words were interspersed with enthusiastic crunching. Sou Yuet had pulled out their notebook and seized a charcoaled stick from the hearth.

“The trees I spoke to there said a white fox with one eye appeared and danced for the pucai. He was so grand that they joined right in.” Rigani took a long drink of water. “Off they danced away east, out of sight of the trees, and after that, simply disappeared.”

“You can speak to trees too, Lady Rigani?”

“I won't answer if ye don't call me 'Mam'.”

“... well, Mother?”

“I can, child. To the trees and the grass and the rocks and the wide, open skies. Forests are harder to deal with. Too much noise.”

“What's that look for, Yuet?” the necromancer asked.

“It just seems odd,” Sou Yuet said, scratching their forehead with the stick and leaving a black smudge. “Looking over the evidence we've gathered... Most of it is from the past year or so, it seems. The pucai, the si dzi, the kei-leon, the hippalektryon, the... the anqa's children... There's Lady Gong's sister's skin that we saw at the auction, although who knows when he obtained that, or how. Oh... we never investigated the aughisky trafficking. And we rode them here.”

“Yeah, well, I think we had other things on our minds at that time.”

“I spoke to them too,” Rigani said brightly. “I wanted to thank them for not trying to eat ye both.”

“... and...?”

“Now that was a bit odd. They said they'd been playing with some bits and bobs of wood they found floating in the water. Next they knew, the wood had grown branches... Well, they said branches, but I'm thinking they meant arms, and those arms grabbed them and held them fast. A boat, a spirit boat, they said, came by, and the wooden arms attached themselves to the sides. They were dragged all the way to the east like that, they said. Doesn't sound like fun.”

“A 'spirit boat'?” Sou Yuet repeated, mystified.

“There weren't a soul on board.”

“That is odd. No sign of Li... But no doubt, either, since they ended up at his auction.”

“What about yer little colleen here?” Rigani asked, smiling sweetly at Sunny. The big creature trotted happily over at the attention and she and Rigani collapsed into a pile with satisfied sighs.

“Far as we know, fox-face managed to nab her da and mam, but she hid somehow. Not like we can ask her.”

“Why not?” Rigani asked, puzzled. “I'll ask her now.” She pressed her forehead against Sunny's and frowned, apparently concentrating.

Sou Yuet continued to pore over their notes with a similar frown.

The necromancer collapsed into a chair at the table and waited.

“I see... so...” After a short while, Rigani rolled back.”I don't think I like this fox spirit.”

“I don't know how ye could before, Mam, but what makes ye say that now?”

“It seems he was sending them nightmares. Poor things, they were so tired.”

“And then he used the aniseed on them, I suppose?”

“Not sure, child. This little one fell asleep and woke up to find her parents gone.”

“Si dzi can dispel demonic energies, including attempts at possession and trances,” Sou Yuet explained. “To wear them down so much, Li must have been sending nightmares for a while.”

“About two mortal years,” Rigani said, scratching under the 'little one's chin.

Sou Yuet hastily made another note. “How did she avoid being taken by Li?”

“She... hid somehow. I couldn't rightly understand that part. When she woke, she... moved a ball? Somehow that made her invisible.”

“An array,” Sou Yuet said. “Oh, essentially, it's... a sort of spell,” they quickly explained, seeing Rigani's puzzled look. “There are many different kinds. Pang Yau has seen me make one before. It seems that there was a concealment array in the cave that could be triggered by moving the Si dzi's toys.”

“That's a bit risky, isn't it?” the necromancer queried. “What if someone bumped it while sweeping or whatever they did?”

“They're too heavy for a normal person to move.” Sou Yuet scratched their forehead again with the stick of charcoal, leaving even more smudges. “It seems Li didn't search for arrays, which is surprising... I assumed he would have.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“So why is it that ye're telling us to leave now?”

“Oh...” Rigani turned big eyes towards her child. “My dear, are ye sure ye're wanting to keep living this way?”

“What d'ye mean?”

“Why won't ye just stay here, in the Other Place? Yuet has a strong spirit. They'll be fine here, if that's yer worry. Oh, have ye been drinking ye tea?”

“Mam!” the necromancer yelped. “What's going on?”

“That go-for-nothing bhard has got all the Aiteann Court out looking for ye. They know ye're here, child.”

The necromancer scoffed. “So?”

“I agree, La- Mother, I'm also here,” Sou Yuet interjected, looking quizzical. “The request was for Yuen Mei to keep an eye on Pang Yau, and that's what I'm doing.”

“And a few other things.”

“And why d'ye think that was?” Rigani said simply, as Sou Yuet casually kicked the necromancer in the shin.

“The reasoning they gave was to strengthen international relations,” Sou Yuet replied thoughtfully, as the necromancer nursed her bruised leg, “but your question would suggest that this was an excuse. Of course, it's rather unusual that mages of Iriu would travel all the way into the east for someone to surveil a criminal of theirs. So the answer, I assume, is that they wanted to keep Pang Yau away from Iriu.”

“What does this 'Pang Yau' mean?” Rigani asked.

Sou Yuet explained.

“Oh. How cute. But ain't me child more than just a friend now?”

“Mam...”

“That's true,” Sou Yuet said, blushing slightly, to the necromancer's own embarrassment. “Perhaps I need to find a different name.”

“Are ye all forgetting that those Aiteann bastards are sniffing around for me for some reason? What the feck is going on?”

“They're investigating, child. The village.”

The village.

The necromancer's face darkened. “Ah. It's... Ah Yuet knows, Mam. Ye can speak freely.”

Rigani's face brightened. “Ye knew, little Yuet, and ye're still by me child's side? When are ye getting married then?”

“MAM!”

“That's a bit of a nuisance,” Sou Yuet said. “We really should be getting back to Yuen Mei. I could only provide the most basic details of Li's actions in my messages. And since we left the Jade Road, I haven't been able to send any messages at all. We need to provide our accounts of what we've seen and heard.”

“You could just kill them all,” Rigani suggested innocently. “Then they wouldn't be bothering ye.”

“Tempting as that is, Mam, I might pass on that.”

“Why?”

The necromancer stared at Sou Yuet, who had just asked this question. “I can understand that question from Mam, but from you?”

“Pang Yau, aren't you a-”

“Does that mean I should just go around killing things as I like, then?” the necromancer snapped.

“That's... not what I meant.”

Sou Yuet snapped the charcoal stick. The necromancer scowled and scuffed the floor.

“Sorry.”

“Well, I wasn't clear...”

“No, I was just... I'm a bit touchy about that. I didn't mean to snap at ye...”

They caught sight of Rigani's benevolently smiling face. “Ye're both so cute.”

“I'm going outside for a bit.” Face flaming, the necromancer bolted through the door. After a brief hesitation, Sou Yuet stood too.

“Little Yuet?”

“L- Mother?”

“Can ye...?” Rigani smiled peaceably. “No, I shouldn't be asking. Never mind.”

“What is it?”

“Well, maybe... Could ye try and... I just want to know how me child's been all this time, but they won't tell me, ye see. Could ye try and encourage them to just say something to me? Even... Even if it's a lie?”

“How they've been?” Sou Yuet frowned. “Was there something else other than what happened during our trip that you wanted to know?”

Rigani's big eyes shook. “Me child... I hadn't seen them for... maybe seven years? I just want to know that they were doing grand, ye know? Anything.”

Sou Yuet thought that they could hear her huge heart beating, loud and painful.

“Okay. Okay, I'll speak to her.”

Rigani smiled gratefully as the monk bowed and followed the necromancer. They found her lying by the creek on the soft grass, the water muttering quietly to itself.

“I just don't want her to get hurt,” she muttered, as Sou Yuet sat down beside her. “I don't want anyone to get hurt. Hurting people's easy. And I don't like it.”

“She's already hurt, Pang Yau.”

“I know. I...”

“Why don't you stay here?”

The necromancer shook her head. “I don't know if I can rightly explain it. It just... There's something suffocating, about being... The spirits and gods of this place, they've lived a long, long time. And when something lives for a long, long time, they can get all twisted up inside... Ye've seen the Hunt. And... them that hide in the dark places... that were with me in the cave when... I was young... I don't want to become like that.” She threw herself back to look up at the impossibly starry sky. “I want to pretend that I'm something else for as long as I can. Besides...” She pulled Sou Yuet down into her arms. “Ye think ye can get away from me, monk?”

“Shouldn't it be the other way around? You promised you would run away when I first met you?”

“I'd hoped ye'd forgotten about that.”

“I've got a good memory.”

“Oh yeah? What else d'ye remember? How about last night-”

“Cride.”

“Eh? Oh, ye remember how to say that, do ye?”

“I've been practising.”

“Why?”

Sou Yuet blinked. “Well, I thought it might be a better name, now...”

The necromancer clapped a hand to her face, and stayed still for a long moment.

“Cride?”

“Stop. Just... stop.” The necromancer's breathing was rough. “If ye keep talking, I might pass out. Or eat ye.”

“I'd prefer the latter, please.”

The necromancer raised the hand off her face disbelievingly. “Are ye really a monk?”

“Hm? Maybe? I hadn't heard that word before you used it, actually. What does it mean?”

“Ye mean ye've let me call ye that all this time without knowing its meaning?”

“I liked the way you said it.”

The necromancer rolled away, both hands over her face. “Just stop. Stop talking.”

“Why?”

“Anyway. Monks worship gods, right? And since they dedicate their whole lives to their god, they usually don't...”

“Don't...?”

“Go around fecking criminals they're supposed to be keeping an eye on,” the necromancer growled.

“Oh. Well. Good thing I'm not a monk then.”

“So what...”

“The closest I can get would be 'cultivator'. As though we were farming, we tend to our spiritual energies, to Ascend and become Immortals. I suppose that would be like... seeking to become gods ourselves.”

“Why?”

“You asked me this once, didn't you?”

“Yeah, and I still don't get it. Being immortal ain't all it's cracked up to be.”

“I suppose everyone has their own reasons. Some people want power. Some just want to know everything there is to know.”

“And you?”

“I think I'm one of the latter,” Sou Yuet said, the stars reflected in their dark eyes. “I want to see everything in the universe. I want to meet everyone. This adventure with you has let me start on that path, and I don't want to stop just yet. Besides... There's someone I want to follow around and embarrass, and I don't believe they are going to be dying any time soon.”

Smiling, the necromancer closed her eyes. “Shall we do that then? Travel the universe together?”

“I'd like that.”

The next day, the necromancer talked for a long time with her mother. Then they said their goodbyes - “It's only temporary, Mam.” - and, facing east, began to walk.

The sunny skies and green grass faded away into the sparse landscape of early spring, and they stepped out in the middle of a ring of mages, staffs raised defensively. A man with burnt orange hair skulked behind a nearby tree, hoping to remain unseen. He scuttled away as the necromancer sneered at him.

“Death-Speaker.”

Sou Yuet recognised the woman who spoke as the mage who had led the delegation to Yuen Mei. She glared at the trio, flinching in surprise as Sunny let out a low, rumbling growl.

“Disciple Yuan Yi Feng, we will be taking the Death-Speaker into our custody.”